This is in humane how this "test" was done. I am in Long Island. There are lots of Elderly people here, there are elderly tourist guests here, and this "test" almost killed them. They are in shock. What a crazy way to do this. The school children is in tears, Do you all people realize what you have done? the next time, God forbid something do happen, who is going to believe this? This was on National Radio. Think Bahamas! This is real people you are dealing with.

NEMA needs to advise as to what purpose this TEST served. It seems pretty pointless to me, unless its purpose was to force everyone to realize how ill-equipped this nation is to deal with anything of that magnitude.

I mean... this was stupid. I was running around frantically trying to get my children out of school and from the sitter to be with me. This test was dumb and stupid and inhumane. I had my mother texting me from another island, scareddd....

It should have said NEMA WARNING 'TEST'. Dont make it seem like something is happening for real.

Very poorly organized and followed through with that is for sure. The schools and other institutions should have been notified before hand (Maybe they were and the illeterate admins offices couldn't read the memos...but I digress)...but as I was saying, notify the necessary personnel so when the alert comes out, you can go through the motions with your school of a 'TEST' drill...but make it VERY clear that it is a TEST...just like a more elaborate fire drill.

Not trying to be mean but if you are going to call someone illiterate it might be in your best interest to know how to spell the word first.

/Just saying

DOH!! Totally didn't catch that...try to proof read all my posts pretty thoroughly. Well caught...my bad!!

ooooooooooooo

see that's the benefit of living close to the dump fire in NP. Kids are home from school already, so whats the panic?

I didn't take it seriously @ all....what earthquake took place to trigger an unexpected tsunami?I laughed when my co-worker told me a tsunami was coming. Even if it were true I'm not afraid of death or dying!

I deleted my comment because you are an idiot plain and simple...

My point exactly! Earthquake in our proximity! Duh

The USA National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)
This is a classic example of how any USA agency can manipulate this country; they don’t need their guns to do it! Bahamians are so saturated with Americanism - that nothing will come out of this deranged corrupted behaviour by an agency that is deeply embedded in our country’s psyche! If Fred Mitchell or Perry Christie has any non house boy mentality - they will call the NEMA representatives in and put them under heavy manners for their incompetence to the Bahamas! Those sons of sea cats - ought to be disciplined to the fullest extent, allowed by the rule of law! That Tsunami alert to the Bahamas by NEMA was absolutely not helpful! Agencies like that would give Americans a bad name! Now NEMA should send the Tsunami warning test to the USA Eastern seaboard and we will see what happens!

The phones are smart...the people are stupid lemmings...

Sometime in the middle of last year CNN carried a similar story around 3:00 in the morning. They claimed that there had been a massive earthquake under the ocean and that a tsunami was headed this way. The entire US Eastern Seaboard, the Caribbean and all the way down to the parts of South America was in the warning area. They stayed with the story for a few minutes, then promised to come back with more' breaking news' about the tsunami after a commercial break. However when they came back from the break nothing else was mentioned of the tsunami except to say that more details would be coming 'after the break'. This went on for several hours until around 5 a.m. they had a short report to say that only Hawaii was under tsunami watch. You could imagine what this did to people's nerves especially when you are in a country with no high ground and you are told that a tsunami is headed your way at 3 o'clock in the morning. How does one prepare if a tsunami is actually headed to the Bahamas?

The same way one prepares for a tornado or an earthquake. You really can't because truthfully the Bahamas is not a country that is set up to deal with those kinds of natural disasters. We are a flat set of islands which works to our advantage in hurricanes but outside of that we are screwed.

Unfourtunately these days countries that have never experienced certain disasters are and it really places countries in a bind as to how to deal with these types of things.

That is why it's important that Bahamians stay vigilant and don't discount anything despite how you may feel about the agency reporting.

The concept of an emergency drill in case of fire, earthquake, tsunami etc. should me built in to all public buildings, offices and local government institutions etc.

This just shows how prepared we are in case of a real emergency. Good test. Stop the excuses.

I really don't understand how the director of NEMA could say on ZNS yesterday that he was happy with the results. Since when do people perform a test by scaring the hell out of the general public, resulting in mass hysteria, and endangering people's lives, job, and the general business of the day?

Perhaps it would have been sensible to say "we are simulating a tsunami warning, if a tsunami was coming think about what you do, and where you would go within the next 2 hours" don't send people out into the streets saying there's a tsunami coming and watch out. I'm really surprised someone didn't die in a traffic accident, or that no mini-riots started downtown and other places.

And yes people with the technology could have researched online for earthquakes in the region but this news seemed to spread throughout the entire Bahamas, think about the people on the out islands that were told by officials that a tsunami was coming and that was only information source they had.

Just goes to prove several things...

1. Bahamians are likes Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey and the whole clan- one person claims the sky is falling and everyone rushes about like chickens with their heads cut off without actually verifying the information.

2. Bahamians tend to ignore warnings that are given as tests. How many people do you think would have actually heeded a test and at least pretended to consider what they would do in the event of such a disaster?

3. If NEMA did indeed give the information to ZNS that it was a test and ZNS decided not to share that with the public then the fault is with ZNS for withholding or providing incorrect information. Which in the past has been an issue with our news sources- wrong or inaccurate information.

Just saying in light of this Bahamians might want to re-evaluate how they respond to certain things.